Silbury Hill

I was pleased to call at Silbury Hill this month. Access is now restricted, but one can view it well enough from all the nearby countryside. At nearly 130 feet high, it is the tallest prehistorical monument in Europe. Various archaeological digs have revealed nothing about its contents, which just seem to be chalk and clay excavated from the nearby fields which were piled and shaped into its present form. It is estimated to have taken 18 million man-hours to construct, demonstrating the advanced society which could spare such hands from the production of food. Its original appearance would have been pale white on account of its chalk surface.

Construction began around 2400BC, which means that it was built at a similar time to the Egyptian pyramids. Although the latter are meant to be tombs, there is no such purpose attributed to Silbury. Explanations for the hill and varied and plentiful, so I offer one of my own with little abashment. That period of construction was not long after the Tower of Babel was constructed at Shinar in the Middle East. I wonder if this was another attempt at building a reminder of mankind’s most visually impressive, collective endeavour: a re-made, miniature Tower of Babel, but located much further north. The flattened top may well be an admission that human effort, then as now, cannot gain one access to heaven. Human religion, piety and cooperation will never quite elevate us far enough. As at Babel, ‘the Lord came down’, not this time to inspect a city, but to become a man, that through His life, death and resurrection, He might escort Adam’s kin to heaven again.

In my Father’s house are many dwelling places: if it were not so, I would have told you: I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there may ye be also...Jesus said unto him, I am that Way, and that Truth, and that Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14, Geneva Bible